This product was not featured by Product Hunt yet. It will not be visible on their landing page and won't be ranked (cannot win product of the day regardless of upvotes).
Trawl is a search tool for files you know you saved, but can't remember how you named. Describe a photograph by what's in it, find words inside a screenshot, or search the text of PDFs and documents. Open results directly or reveal them in Finder. A floating orb and Option–Space shortcut make it easy to use from your workflow.
Hey Product Hunt — I'm Vince, an independent software engineer based in Mauritius, and I built Trawl.
The problem is simple: I often remember a file by what was inside it, not by its filename. A photo with palm trees, a screenshot of a booking confirmation, or that PDF I saved months ago.
Trawl is my attempt to make Mac search work more like human memory. It indexes text, recognizes supported media locally with Apple's frameworks, and lets you search using descriptions. There's also an optional server-assisted ranking feature that users can turn off.
The first version is for Apple Silicon Macs running macOS 26+. It isn't available on Windows, and because I'm distributing independently, setup has more steps than installing from the App Store. I'm working on improving that.
I'd love feedback on the first-run experience, search quality and which use cases matter most. If you try it, tell me what you searched for — especially if Trawl didn't find it.
Thanks for taking a look.
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About Trawl on Product Hunt
“Trawl · Describe it. Trawl finds it.”
Trawl was submitted on Product Hunt and earned 0 upvotes and 1 comments, placing #123 on the daily leaderboard. Trawl is a search tool for files you know you saved, but can't remember how you named. Describe a photograph by what's in it, find words inside a screenshot, or search the text of PDFs and documents. Open results directly or reveal them in Finder. A floating orb and Option–Space shortcut make it easy to use from your workflow.
Trawl was featured in Productivity (663.6k followers), Artificial Intelligence (481.6k followers) and Menu Bar Apps (12.3k followers) on Product Hunt. Together, these topics include over 304.8k products, making this a competitive space to launch in.
Who hunted Trawl?
Trawl was hunted by Vince Erkadoo. A “hunter” on Product Hunt is the community member who submits a product to the platform — uploading the images, the link, and tagging the makers behind it. Hunters typically write the first comment explaining why a product is worth attention, and their followers are notified the moment they post. Around 79% of featured launches on Product Hunt are self-hunted by their makers, but a well-known hunter still acts as a signal of quality to the rest of the community. See the full all-time top hunters leaderboard to discover who is shaping the Product Hunt ecosystem.
Want to see how Trawl stacked up against nearby launches in real time? Check out the live launch dashboard for upvote speed charts, proximity comparisons, and more analytics.
Vince Erkadoo